


hand me your heart

by pinksunlight



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hands, Kissing, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan is Whipped, M/M, Mark Lee (NCT) is Whipped, Nail Cutting, Romantic Fluff, Tenderness, The Yearn is real in this one, and for the nasties...NO IT'S NOT A KINK THING, and one neck kiss because i'm a sucker for those, but i mean they already love each other so, but not as much as my verkwan fic..., hyuck likes mark's hands very much and mark likes hyuck very much, that's not a tag but it should be, they're both whipped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25416844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinksunlight/pseuds/pinksunlight
Summary: Donghyuck can spend a lifetime talking about Mark's hands.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 28
Kudos: 274





	hand me your heart

**Author's Note:**

> because writing a soft verkwan fic about hands and moms wasn't enough. i made my mom cut my nails after this because i projected on mark too much.

Mark’s hands are far from perfect.

His fingertips are calloused from suffocating guitar strings until they can’t breathe, and he told Donghyuck once that he only presses down so hard so that he can breathe easier. When they’re in the thick of recording songs for a new album and sheets of music can’t be avoided, Mark will leave the studio with tiny cuts scattered across his hands.

He gets reckless when they get busy, and Donghyuck can’t count how many times he’s disguised his concern by throwing out snide remarks about how Mark needs to learn how to take care of himself. It’s all very self-defeating because at the end of the day, it’s Donghyuck who approaches him with band-aids for the deeper cuts, rolling his eyes and muttering about how irresponsible Mark is despite being a year older than himself.

Mark’s palms aren’t soft. They’re tough and nearly always too dry because he still hasn’t learned to use hand lotion even after years of Donghyuck telling him that he might as well replace his hands with sandpaper if he wasn’t going to moisturize like a decent person. When it comes to the back of Mark’s hands though, things start to improve.

The skin there is soft, for whatever reason, and it feels nice under Donghyuck’s thumb when they’ve intertwined their fingers. Unfortunately, the magic fades when it comes to the skin around his nails. Through over-exposure, Taeyong has conditioned Mark to bite his nails when he gets anxious, resulting in a dry, cracked abomination of skin and blood. He bites them too often, leaving them way too short until his nails are completely flat against his skin.

But Donghyuck likes Mark’s hands. They’re not special, but they’re pale and have streams of veins splitting down them. He likes to hold them, or have them on him, and he likes to take care of them just to have an excuse to experience either. Like now, for instance.

“Hyuck, I’m busy,” Mark half whines, half groans, but he’s turning off his computer nonetheless. He’s way too compliant when it comes to Donghyuck, and Donghyuck abuses his particular power over him as often as he can.

Mark gets up from his chair and moves to sit on the bed, cross-legged in front of Donghyuck, who’s dug out the nail care kit from the bottom of the drawer in the bathroom they’ve all coined the Self-Care Stock. On the floor, he’s placed his special bottle of lotion he bought a few months ago when he felt like spoiling himself.

“You’re always busy, but you’re never actually doing anything important,” Donghyuck says with a dismissive wave of the hand.

Mark looks like he’s going to argue, but then seems to think better of it, shaking his head fondly instead. He takes his glasses off and stretches behind him to place them on the desk, rubbing his eyes languidly as he turns back to Donghyuck.

There’s something different between how Mark looks with contacts in and how he looks without them in, glasses off. Donghyuck knows it’s probably just this image he’s created in his mind, but he thinks that Mark looks softer. Less sharp and clean cut, he’s messy like this, he feels more like Mark.

Especially now, when the light emanates through his semi-drawn curtains, painting them an unnatural red and basking the entire room in a warm glow. It’s not dark in the room because the afternoon sun is only just beginning to descend, but with the curtains only leaving a small gap for the golden rays to stream through, Donghyuck still feels like there’s something contained and closed off about the space.

It all feels like when he was younger and used to make blanket forts. Finally ducking under the covers and settling in would provide him with a calm of sorts, this serenity that only a 6-year-old could hold and sit with in the middle of the day with the world whirling around him.

Right here, with Mark, he feels like he’s 6-years-old again.

Donghyuck unzips the kit and tugs the nail clipper out of its spot. He holds out a hand in which Mark instantly places his own and Donghyuck inspects the nails like he’s a jeweller checking for the authenticity of a diamond. He’s been trying to get him to cut down on all the biting recently, had told him to do it for him because he was embarrassed his best friend walked around with hands like _that_ when his own were so gorgeous.

Surprisingly, that tactic seems to have worked, because Mark’s nails are longer than Donghyuck remembers them ever being since their debut.

He makes a noise of satisfaction and tilts his head up only to find Mark already looking at him.

“Happy?”

“Very,” Donghyuck sings. Then, he holds up the nail clipper and clicks it twice with a menacing grin on his face, “Now, let’s show you how normal people maintain their nail length.”

Mark’s faces loses some of its softness, and he squints at the nail clipper doubtfully. It’s only because Mark can’t see it clearly, but Donghyuck still feels the urge to laugh and cup his face in his hands, planting kisses all over.

Something in his stomach turns, he looks away. 

“Don’t tell me you’re bringing something sharp near my skin and I’m supposed to be okay with it,” Mark states in disbelief. Donghyuck tuts and guides Mark’s hand onto his knee where it’ll be stable. The room is warm, so Donghyuck doesn’t think anything of the sudden heat blooming from everywhere his hand is touching Mark’s.

“Don’t tell _me_ you don’t trust your best friend of a hundred and twenty-seven years, your soulmate, your one and only-”

“Oh my god, please shut up. I trust you. I can do it myself, though?” Mark says it like it’s a question, and that’s reason enough not to let him do it.

In his head, Donghyuck knows that Mark is more than capable of cutting his own nails. He’s an adult, as much as Donghyuck insists he can’t be based on the way he acts half the time, and using a nail clipper is far from difficult for SM’s fully capable, golden boy.

But then he wouldn’t be able to cradle Mark’s hand like this, or sit this close to him on his bed, or feel his eyes on him, especially fond when they’re alone. And it’s that, really, that makes Donghyuck want to do it for him.

Donghyuck’s wearing basketball short that are long enough to cover the part of his leg that Mark’s hand is resting on, but it still makes him freeze (just for a moment, because he is _not_ obvious or a wimpy little preteen) when Mark smooths his thumb over the area.

“Hyuck?”

“Huh?” Donghyuck looks up and Mark’s sporting a teasing smile. The light coming from behind him tints his hair a light brown and Donghyuck almost whines because how can he possibly look so good on a Saturday afternoon with no make-up on and a flimsy, basic t-shirt?

“I said, why don’t I just do it?”

“No, you said you _can_ do it yourself.”

“You listen just as well as you deflect,” Mark grins when Donghyuck rolls his eyes and focuses back on the task at hand (no pun intended).

He makes sure he doesn’t cut too close, leaving enough of the nail that the white is still visible. He’s just going to have to trust that Mark won’t attempt to bite nails that barely stick out over the tips of his fingers.

They don’t talk much. Donghyuck is aware that Mark is watching him, but it doesn’t make him uneasy. He doesn’t need any filler sounds when it’s just them, no music, no conversation. There’s something inherently safe about being around Mark, so he doesn’t feel nervous when they spend time like this.

He lets his eyes rake over Mark’s hands, over his veins and the black marks from when he’d been writing with a pen earlier. He’s not wearing his rings, but there are noticeable tan lines on his ring and index finger. Donghyuck pauses mid-cut at Mark’s pinky to run his fingers over the two different shades.

“How do you tan so much more than the rest of us and then go back to looking like glue when winter hits?” Donghyuck asks, quietly because the ambiance of the room makes him feel like he’s obligated to keep his volume low. A couple of rays of sun peek out from between the curtains and they land perfectly on where his fingers are touching Mark’s. When he doesn’t get an immediate response, he looks up, feeling the sun hit the left side of his face.

Mark blinks at him, then tilts his head imperceptibly. Donghyuck wonders if he didn’t hear him clearly.

“I asked-”

“Your eyes look different in the sun.”

A lot of things run through his mind at once, a list of all the ways he could respond.

_Well, don’t everyone’s eyes?_

_You get sidetracked too easily._

_Your eyes look different when you can’t quite see me._

He doesn’t say any of them.

Instead, he slightly panics and closes his left eye, and then panics more after realizing he probably looks like he’s winking, so he closes his right eye too, and then he’s just sitting there with his eyes squeezed shut and Mark’s soft laughter filling the space between.

It’s stupid. He’s being stupid. So he opens his eyes, doesn’t look at Mark, and ducks his head to finish cutting Mark’s pinky nail. He’s still being stupid, Mark didn’t even say anything weird. God, all he pointed out was that his eyes look different. Not even good, just different. Why can’t he just look at him?

“Donghyuck,” there’s a smile in Mark’s voice that’s hard to ignore.

He doesn’t react, making sure he’s being careful with the clipper.

“I can’t believe the great Lee Donghyuck is, dare I say, flustered.”

He’s not. He’s not shy either.

He just doesn’t know if he can say something right now without accidentally blurting out that he’s in love with his best friend, and if he did then there would be nothing holding Mark back from rejecting him (the right choice that would feel wrong) or confessing that he felt the same way (the wrong choice that would feel right).

Donghyuck’s not stupid, he knows it would be the latter. But he can’t have that.

The thing is, Donghyuck’s given himself rules. Rules that he needs to follow so that he doesn’t jeopardize his or his friends’ careers.

He allows himself to love Mark, but it’s in ways so subtle he’s always able to get away with saying it’s because they’re friends, best friends.

Getting him to learn songs on the guitar so they can sing together, sitting on the counter reading out instructions when Mark decides to try his hand at cooking yet again, making him laugh when they’re in the practice room and Donghyuck can see that the choreographies don’t come as easily or stick as easily as they usually do – Mark’s mind filled to the brim with other choreographies to tangle new ones up with.

Sometimes, Mark seems to allow himself to love Donghyuck, too.

Staring at him with stars in his eyes when he sings without any backing, just his raw voice, initiating contact and keeping it when Donghyuck gets back from a Dream schedule exhausted to the core, and once, just once, forcing Donghyuck into the bathtub with his clothes on, on a day where he felt especially down, and washing his hair slowly, gently, because he knows it always helps him feel better, lighter.

It’s as far as they get. And probably as far they’ll ever get.

Donghyuck’s picking up his bottle of lotion up from the floor when Mark slips his hand under the hem of his shorts, his fingers moving against the skin like he’s writing something out.

Donghyuck drops the bottle and swears, ignoring how his face heats up when Mark laughs and cheekily asks, “Go a little weak, there?”

“Shut up,” Donghyuck mutters, scowling at Mark as he grabs the bottle and places it on the bed. He hopes the flush isn’t visible on his cheeks. Mark’s always seemed to have a thing for his legs, his thighs in particular. But it’s different here, in Mark’s room where they’re alone, skin on skin.

“I paid good money for this. If the bottle had cracked and the lotion had spilled everywhere, I would’ve sued you,” Donghyuck adds, glaring at Mark even though there’s no heat behind it. He tries to maintain eye contact, because that’s what normal people do.

Mark gently squeezes Donghyuck’s thigh with an amused glint in his eyes and Donghyuck stops his breath from hitching last minute, but he can tell Mark notices the slight intake of breath. He removes his hand and grabs the lotion, placing it in Donghyuck’s hand.

“You should include master deflector on your resume as a special skill, god knows I could vouch for it,” Mark jokes. Donghyuck relaxes, because this is territory he’s familiar with, and he squeezes out some lotion to start rubbing it into Mark’s hand.

“That’s the thing though,” Donghyuck says airily, “I’m so obviously skilled at it that I don’t have to declare it or have someone vouch for me. Perfect, isn’t it?”

A short exhale, then, “You are.”

Oh, _fuck_ him, honestly.

Donghyuck focuses on Mark’s fingertips and when he finally finishes, Mark holds the hand up to his nose to smell it. He brightens, “This is why you always smell so nice!”

Donghyuck scoffs, but that damn heat is prickling the back of his neck again, “No, my default scent is just amazing. I only use this lotion for my hands.”

“Yeah?”

Donghyuck nods absentmindedly as he searches for the nail clipper. When he finds it, he firmly pulls down the hem of his shorts so they stretch over his knee (Mark passes off a laugh as a cough at that, whatever, Donghyuck hates him) and then loosely places Mark’s other hand on top of it.

He’s just finished the index finger when the quiet between them is broken.

“You know, I think my mom was the last person to cut my nails like this,” Mark confesses, voice soft. “She always held my hands tightly because I hated it. I always ran away.”

Donghyuck doesn’t stop cutting, but he hums to show that he’s listening.

“When I moved here, I thought I’d miss her hugs first. Or her food. Or just, something more… consistent, you know? But I remember sitting on my bed one day and looking at how long my nails had gotten, and I remember just bursting into tears. It was messy, the kind of crying where you have a hard time breathing and your head starts hurting.”

Donghyuck stops at the last finger and puts the nail clipper away, but he doesn’t reach for the lotion. He brings up his legs so he can wrap his arms around them and rests his head on his knees so he can look at Mark while he talks.

Mark is still looking at his hand when he continues, “I missed how tightly she held my hand. I missed how she never got annoyed no matter how much I whined about how I didn’t want her to cut my nails. I missed her telling me it was all for my good, for personal hygiene. I guess I just missed having someone who cared for me enough to see that something would benefit me before I could see it, I don’t think anything beats love like that.”

When Mark looks up, eyes locked onto Donghyuck, he wants to look away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he tightens his grip around himself and lets the corner of his mouth be pulled up. “Savour this because I don’t say it often, but I think you’re right. Just this once.”

Mark laughs, and Donghyuck feels his fingers tingle. “Maybe. I think I found something that comes really close to beating it, though.”

And there it is. That look Mark gets in his eyes when he can’t really see anything, when he can’t see Donghyuck because his glasses are off. It’s not monumental or anything, but the way Mark speaks makes him wonder if he’s always been able to clearly see Donghyuck, glasses or not.

“It feels good when my hand is held loosely, there’s this trust that I’m not going to leave. It feels good when I’m told off for being too much, it’s a reminder that there’s someone who isn’t afraid to keep it real with me. And, Hyuck?”

Donghyuck nods dumbly. Then again, more firm, when he notices that Mark is looking at him a little tentatively.

“I like that you tell me to do things for your sake, that you know I’ll always do them that way. I like it so much, because it’s like you’ve got your emotions linked to mine. Like we belong to each other.”

A confession, in the most Mark way possible. It’s terrifying. Donghyuck really wants to kiss him.

“You talk a lot,” Donghyuck says with a dry throat. He fidgets on his spot.

“I do,” Mark agrees easily, then inches close so he can move Donghyuck’s legs down; no longer a barrier between their bodies. “But I don’t think you mind.”

Donghyuck doesn’t, but Mark doesn’t have to know that.

He does have to know this, though. “There’s a reason I’ve never-”

“ _Hyuck_ ,” Mark pleads, taking Donghyuck’s hands in his. “I know, trust me. But I’m tired of whatever game we’re playing. This whole you pretending I’m not crazy about you and pulling away every time thing, it’s not – I can’t keep doing it. There’s too many things I feel and too many things I want to do.”

Donghyuck swallows and looks at Mark, feeling his calloused fingertips rubbing circles over his knuckles. They’re not perfect, his hands. Not pretty like Sicheng’s, or big like Yukhei’s, but Donghyuck’s always liked them. He can find a million different things he likes about them, and that’s the only thing that matters, really.

He lets out a shaky breath and then laughs at himself, a little too loudly for the atmosphere, but it gets Mark to crack a smile too.

“You think it’ll be okay?” He asks quietly. Mark’s hand comes up to play with his ear, and he holds back a smile at the touch.

“I do.” And it’s so simple, so full of conviction, that Donghyuck huffs out a laugh of disbelief and then lets his head fall onto Mark’s shoulder. He gives himself a couple seconds before he hesitantly presses a kiss to Mark’s neck.

Mark’s hands immediately find his hips, and when he squeezes them Donghyuck moves back up, hovering right in front of Mark’s face.

“You know what?” Mark breathes, eyes trailing down to Donghyuck’s lips. “You were right, your default scent is naturally amazing.”

Donghyuck stops himself from saying something stupid like _my default taste is pretty amazing too, want to find out?_ and leans in, connecting their lips together. In contrast to the rest of him, Mark’s lips are soft, and they move perfectly against Donghyuck’s. It’s a little shy because they’re both kind of unsure, but then Mark nips at Donghyuck’s lower lip and he abandons all caution, moving so that he’s properly straddling Mark.

A shiver runs down his spine when Mark’s hands explore his thighs, his back, and it’s when he tugs at Donghyuck’s hair slightly and Donghyuck lets out a quiet, breathy moan that he decides they should probably reign in some control. Donghyuck pulls back and stares at Mark’s flushed cheeks and pink lips and laughs, cupping his face between his hands.

“So this is what I’ve been missing out on,” he teases. 

But Mark isn’t one to back down, sliding his hands under Donghyuck’s shirt to grip his waist and leaning in close to his ear to murmur lowly, “There’s a lot more than this, trust me.”

His façade breaks when he starts to giggle and it’s contagious, spreading to Donghyuck until they’re both laughing. Eventually they end up sprawled on the bed, exchanging lazy kisses until the room grows darker. It’s then, in the dark, that Donghyuck takes Mark’s hands in his own and presses a kiss to each finger.

“I love your hands.”

Mark pulls Donghyuck closer, kisses the top of his head and then knocks their foreheads together with a knowing grin, “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> is it nail cutter or clipper? i say cutter but i got self-conscious so i replaced it with clipper. idk. also i love how inconsistent i am with my fics like i have no rules about how i want to write the summaries or titles or tags it's great. 
> 
> i started writing a fic with the dreamies where they all have these ridiculous superpowers and it's just!! so fun to think about all the little quirks but my only problem is i have NO PLOT. i also want it to be kinda funny cuz i haven't written anything like that in forever and im kinda rusty. 
> 
> anyways i hope u liked it!
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/punksunlight)


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